


Of Marrow and Memories

by octobergryphon



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Darcy Lewis - Freeform, Darcyland, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, M/M, MCU/Assassin's Creed Crossover, Multi, drabble-a-thon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:42:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11682357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octobergryphon/pseuds/octobergryphon
Summary: Sure, Darcy Lewis is the great Lightening Sister of Thor, the wielder of pop tarts and interpreter of late night science rants, best puppy friend and devious Halo player.But what if there's more?What if the dreams are memories written in the very code of her being? (Hint, they totally are.)Written for the Darcyland Drabble-a-Thon of August 2017. The MCU/Assassin's Creed Crossover AU you didn't know you needed.Each chapter will have a link to a charitable foundation - each will be near and dear to my heart.





	1. Prompt for July 31 : 62%

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We wish to discuss a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biologic interest.”  
> ― Rosalind Franklin
> 
> Please go to [Ride for Life](https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?registrationID=3637704&langPref=en-CA&Referrer=%26Referrer%3dhttp%253a%252f%252fbikerally.org%252ffundraising%252fdonate%252f) to donate! They ride to raise awareness and funds to treat HIV/AIDS in the Toronto, Canada, area.

“Look, all I wanted was a note to miss class and enough antibiotics to make a superbug,” Darcy grumbled around a thermometer. Since when did they still use the ones you had to put in your mouth. Why couldn’t they use the ones where it got stuck in her ear, or across her forehead? Even aquariums had that little strip thing, like a mood ring. This one tasted all weird, even if she did see the nurse put on the sterile plasticy covery thing.

“It’s just a little draw to make sure that you don’t have mono or strep. Which are viruses, so the superbug will have to wait,” the nurse replied, noting the temperature on his chart. He had the kind of wrinkles around his eyes that said he laughed a lot, but right now Darcy resented them as she hacked into the elbow of her sweater. She was miserable, so no one else deserved joy.

She left the clinic in her Culver hoodie and lowtops, shuffling as the small bottle of pills rattled in her pocket.

“Do they need to amputate?”

“Ha, ha, fucking hilarious, Janey. I need orange juice and an Asgardian snuggle, stat.”

*~*~*~*~*

“Sir, I have the results back from the DNA scan.”

“Mhmm, yes.”

“Sir, if I may draw your attention to the top of the third page.”

“But, we’ve never had more than a sixty-two percent match before. This has more than a ninety- percent match.”

“We thought as much as you, sir. We ran the numbers three more times.”

“Indeed. Where is the subject?”

“We’ve located her in Antigua, New Mexico.”

“Bring her into the Albuquerque branch. We can have her transferred at a later point.”

“Yes, sir.”


	2. Prompt for August 1 : Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That's how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you'd have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”  
> ― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
> 
> Donate to [Doctors Without Borders.](https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm) Donating funds gives the organization the ability to respond quickly to medical humanitarian emergencies is crucial to saving more lives. Unrestricted funds allow them to allocate our resources most efficiently and where the needs are greatest.

It was that dream again. 

Darcy had this one over and over again. She could never seem to be able to get to the end, always waking up covered in sweat, unable to catch her breath. She could almost feel the solid slick slide of the blade pressing into the side of her throat, just nicking the artery before catching her windpipe.

Darcy pulled her hand away from her neck, still expecting it to be covered in blood, but only seeing sweat.

“Shit. Thor’s hammer. What the hell,” grunted around gasping breaths. 

Her muscles hurt like she had been hurtling herself through the city, almost invisible through the smog and noise of London. The buildings, destroyed in the Blitz and no one even near thinking of doing anything than digging through the rubble, were perfect to throw herself around and through to follow the - 

But London hadn’t looked like that when she had seen it last. 

And it hadn’t smelled like burnt hair, and dust, and oil.

Her muscles hurt like she had been in a fight, throwing her weight around. Catching blows with her forearms, knuckles raw. 

At least Darcy could blame this dream on watching too many newsreels and catching up on Howling Commandos history to finish up her degree. Nevermind that it was newly very relevant with Captain - No, Really Ma’am, Just Call Me Steve - America being newly out of the ice. And her neighbor. 

Nope. She really didn’t need anything else to make her life any weirder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm over on the [tumblr](http://octobergryphon.tumblr.com/).


	3. Prompt for August 2 : Slow Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It's easier to dismiss ghosts in the daylight.”  
> ― Patricia Briggs, Dragon Bones
> 
> Please go check out the [Smithsonian!](https://www.si.edu/giving/donate-now) These museums are free, constantly being updated, and have really cool exhibits and guest lectures. Knowing our past, preserving it, especially the ugly stuff, will hopefully keep us from making the same mistakes again.
> 
> And touching mammoth poop is seriously cool.

It’s a good thing that vintage is an in look, Darcy thought as she pushed through the National Portrait Gallery. The woman had dark hair, perfectly styled without a hair out of place, her lips matched her nails, and she was even carrying gloves, the lace kind that were more for show in the summer heat than warmth. The woman caught Darcy’s eye and smiled, and then it was like she wasn’t even there.

Weird.

“Woah, slow down, what’s the rush?” 

A warm palm cupped her elbow, and Darcy spun around, her mouth stretching into a wide smile before being claimed in a chaste kiss hello.

“I’m running late to see this amazing guy, and I don’t want him to think he was stood up,” she replied, curling into his side as he guided them toward the exhibit of portraits from Women’s Suffrage. 

“If I was that guy, I’d never think that about you,” he teased.

“It’s a good thing it is you, Steve,” she countered, looking up through her lashes at Steve, blinking them exaggeratedly. His lips twisted in a smile before he dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess I am pretty amazing.”

“Did I saw amazing? I should have said amazingly dorky.”

“You were the one who suggested the exhibit!”

“Only because I knew my dork boyfriend would love it.”

Steve just replied by squeezing her tighter to his side. They both fell quiet as the docent began an impassioned lecture about the women in the portraits, starting with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and moving into the women who were at the marches in the early twentieth century.

“I was there, at the Opera House. Ma met President Wilson,” Steve said quietly. “I was a tiny baby, surprised Ma took me out at all. But it was important to her.”

“Wasn’t there an assassination attempt on Wilson that night?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

They fell quiet again, until the docent finished and they were free to wander and take closer looks at the different media of portraiture.

Darcy stuttered forward when someone shoved into her from behind. She caught the scent of sharp florals and powder as she turned around to excuse herself. 

It was the woman before.

_“Nothing is true; everything is permitted. Be careful, dear one, they’re close.”_

“What? Wait? Who? Where did she?”

Steve walked over from the other side of the room, where he’d been studying an oil portrait., lines of concern on his face. 

“Did you see her? She went right by you,” Darcy hissed, trying to look past him into the main hallway.

“See who? Are you alright, honey?”

“She was - nevermind,” Darcy shook her head to clear it. Weirdos were everywhere. “Wanna go see some fossilized mammoth poop?”


	4. Prompt for August 3: Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.”  
> ― Pablo Neruda
> 
> August 3 is my partner's birthday, so I asked them what their favorite charity is. They responded with [Kiva.](https://www.kiva.org/lend) Kiva is an international nonprofit with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. They celebrate and support people looking to create a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.

“Skype sex is really not the same as having you here with me, you know,” Darcy said softly, tracing her fingers along the strong line of Steve’s jaw on the screen of her tablet. He looked tired, actually looked it, with dark circles around his eyes and his normally clean shaven face covered in dark blond scruff. Still, he was smiling at her as he got comfortable in whatever hotel bed he was in, the sounds of outside muffled. 

Steve laughed, warm and familiar. “It sure as hell isn’t, Darcy. I miss you. Even miss that caterwauling you claim is singing to Adele.”

Darcy huffed in mock indignation. “You loved it.”

“No, what I loved was the fact that you weren’t wearing anything but one of my shirts and were singing into a whisk.”

She was, in fact, in one of his shirts at the moment. The sleeves on the plaid button down were too long, even after leaving them rolled up from when Steve had dropped it on their floor, too eager to press their skin together to give his clothing the usual treatment. It smelled like the citrusy woods of Steve’s cologne (he’d been so tickled when she found out that they still made the cologne he used to wear and was very generous with his thanks) and the musky scent of his skin and Darcy had practically lived in it when she wasn’t at work.

She knew that another night or two sleeping in it, it wouldn’t smell like Steve anymore.

“I’ll be home by tomorrow evening. Can’t wait to take you out and show you off, then take you home and get you off sweetheart,” Steve rumbled, cheeks and chest flushing with want.

“I’ll be there, with bows on,” Darcy grinned back at him. “Can’t wait. Love you. Be safe.”

“Love you, too.”

*~*~*~*~*

“Thor! You didn’t tell me you’d be back on Midgard with all of your muscles and hair and cape in the windy-ness,” Darcy exclaimed as Thor crushed her in a bear hug, toes not touching the ground as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him back, hard.

“Lightening-Sister! I am glad to find you faring so well. It seems as though you and Steve are doing well with one another?” Thor asked as Darcy guided him into her and Steve’s apartment.

“Yep. Though, I won’t say no if you decide that you need to rough him up naked in a pile of pudding or mud.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“So what brings you here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but if we don’t get warning ahead of time, it usually means your brother is up to no good, again.”

“Ah, yes, about that.”

“Oh, Odin’s saggy balls! Really? What the hell is Loki doing now?”

“It’s the sceptre. We - I - Loki is going after it, again.”

“I thought he was - “

“Dead? In prison? So did we. He could possibly be the most apt sorcerer in the world. It should have come as no surprise that a simple prison could not hold him.”

*~*~*~*~*

Darcy slept deeply that night, even with the bed too big and too cold, even with the worry of Loki being free on Earth, and the sceptre with its weird power garnering the attention of people with way too much power and not enough conscience.

She didn’t see the green glinting wisps sweep ‘round her spine and head, causing her eyes to droop and her breath to even and almost still in the deepest of sleep. 

Darcy didn’t feel the fingers of Loki’s magic carefully sort through the pieces and bits in her blood, in the marrow of her bones, in the very structure that made her. 

She didn’t feel the slight nudge that made the memories tumble, or the deep breath of satisfaction of a job well done that Loki breathed over her still form as she finally sighed into natural sleep.


	5. Prompt for August 4: Challenged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one's ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.”  
> ― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
> 
> [The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 in the United States, as well as in Spanish, TTL, and real time online support.](https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) +1-800-273-8255.
> 
> You are important. You are loved. You are wanted.

“You don’t really think that this poor excuse for an asset is going to lead us to the sceptre. There’s nothing extraordinary about her. Even her taking out Thor was just because his enhancements were taken out of play.”

“She’s mediocre at best.”

“At worst, she’ll bring unwanted attention.”

“Excuse me.”

The voice was steady and well used: the kind of voice that caused people to pay attention, to devote energy and money, trust and power.

“I think you are all missing the point. There is a ninety- percent match. Even the Soldier doesn’t have a match that high. We can all agree that has been a most successful endeavor?”

“Yes, but -”

“It’s a simple as this. We have been able to use him to shape the world, to give it structure and order. To take away what the people are so freely giving. He doesn’t know where the sceptre is, he doesn't know where any other Pieces of Eden are, but she does. Well, her genetics do. We have the asset take Captain America and the Black Widow out of the equation, and make her the solution. Dr. Locke has made extensive improvements to the machine, combining it with the Animus technology.”

A smaller man, hunched with the look of one who is always harried and harassed stepped into view.

“Once the soldier has brought the new asset in, it will be simple enough to trace her memories though the Animus, and the two of them will lead us to the sceptre.”

“What about the Widow? She managed to evade capture before.”

“She was not the target.”

“And the Captain?”

“Shouldn’t the Soldier be distracting enough?”

*~*~*~*~*

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

*~*~*~*~*

“That man on the bridge. I knew him. “

*~*~*~*~*

“I only pretend to know everything, Rogers.”

“Then you fucking better explain yourself, Natalia, because you sure as shit know more than you’re telling.”

“Darcy, when did you learn to speak Russian?”

“Riva? Oh, _fuck_. We do not have time for this.”

*~*~*~*~*

“I don’t - I’m sorry - I-”

“You have to go after him. You have to stop the helicarriers. You have to save the world, again. I get it, Steve. I get it. I knew who you were when I got into this relationship. I knew who Bucky was to you when we started this.”

There was a pause before the heavy sigh. She was surrounded by the smell of wool and smoke. The feel of solid warmth and home.

“Maybe I’ll be able to tell you what he was to us when you get back.”

“I love you. Be careful.”

“I love you, too. Don’t make me quote the queen of Sparta at you.“

"I'm still not wearing leather manties."

“Bring him home to us.”

*~*~*~*~*

There was nothing worse, Darcy thought, than watching the man she loved and the man she, one of her, one of them, loved with the same intensity, fall to their deaths and not being able to join them. 


	6. Prompt for August 5: Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The only true borders lie between day and night, between life and death, between hope and loss.”  
> ― Erin Hunter
> 
> Safe Place is a national youth outreach and prevention program for young people in need of immediate help and safety. [Visit Safe Place here.](http://nationalsafeplace.org/get-involved/donate-now/)

“I think it’s real cute that you thought I wouldn’t figure out where you bolt hole is, Natalia,” Darcy said from where she was sitting on the counter, swinging her booted feet. Instead of her usual knit dresses and leggings, she was wearing jeans with her boots, and a close knit shirt under a canvas jacket. A motorcycle helmet was sitting on the counter next to her, along with a small set of sheathed knives.

“It’s Natasha now, Riva’s granddaughter,” Natasha replied as she stepped lightly into the room. She was surprised that Darcy had found her so quickly, not expecting Darcy to be able to synchronize so easily or clearly.

“Steve says you’re a friend. I say that I remember things very differently.”

And she did. She remembered everything - every fight, every love, every simple mistake, from her first Assassin ancestor to her grandmother, who had only died before she was born. She remembered Bucky when he was a knight in Wallachia, working against Vlad Dracula, and she had been raised in her Assassin family, having found him sweating with fever in a nunnery.

She remembered coming to a stalemate with Natal- Natasha in the 1950s, Riva a Russian Jewess who came back after the war. They hadn’t let Hilter have the pieces, they certainly were not going to let Stalin have it.  
She also remembered how Natasha always led with her right hip, and Darcy leaned into it as Natasha pushed off with her leg to try and catch Darcy in the sternum.

“I like your shoes. Did Haacke down in the armoury make those for you? Are they the ones with the cool knife that comes out of the heel? I always wanted a pair but Jane wouldn’t let me get them. Was worried I trip and gut myself.”

“Why are you here?” Natasha asked. To someone who didn’t know her, hadn’t studied her or spent over a decade tracking her, she looked unruffled, like she was walking her dog on a sunny day. To Darcy, who had all of her grandmother’s information streaming through her mind, saw that Natasha was surprised and Not Happy.

“Steve. Bucky. Fucking Hydra-Templar-Abstergo. The scepter that people _still_ haven’t learned how to leave the fuck alone. You.”

All of this was said in between punches, swipes of fists and feet.

They both stopped, on either side of the room, breathing hard and grinning.

“Now that that’s settled. Steve’s barely out of the hospital. You let all of their little secrets out,” Darcy said.

“Yep. That was a fun way to spend the afternoon.”

“I bet.”

“When are we going after James?”

“As soon as I can get Steve sitting up and standing on his own.”

“I’m driving.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fight me.”


	7. Prompt for August 6: Summer Haze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”  
> ― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
> 
> Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.” I am one of these "blanketeers" and it's so rewarding for me. [Go here to learn more about Project Linus.](http://www.projectlinus.org/donations/)

They were in the ass-end of Virginia, just outside of the Great Dismal Swamp, and it was August and everything was _awful_. 

“What fresh hell is this?” Natasha complained, visibly wilted, for once, little tendrils of hair sticking to her face and neck. She was sprawled across the porch of the tiny cabin, trying to catch anything resembling a breeze. 

“It’s called summer in Virginia in a fucking swamp, Nat,” Steve replied, his voice lazy like talking would make him too hot.

“Both of you are sissies,” Darcy teased from the swing, glass of ice cold tea in her hand, sweet enough to make her teeth hurt. Meaning: perfect.

“Darcy, to be very indelicate, I have what I’ve been told by Sam is swamp balls. I never thought I would experience this for myself, but it is horrible and awful and you know I hate being cold but this is fucking unreasonable.”

“Poor baby. Are you going to melt away into nothing?” Darcy asked, sighing as she pressed the cold glass to her chest.

“Why is it foggy?”

“It’s not fog, punk, it’s haze.”

“Bucky?”

“Always such a drama queen, with the entrances, Yasha.”

“Ghost story, blah blah.”

“All you need is a cape and some swooping to complete the look.”

“Bucky?”

A smile graced Bucky’s mobile mouth.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Steve just stared from where he was leaning on the railing.

“C’mere, Steve. I’m not going to knife you or try to bash your skull in,” Bucky said, arms opening to the side, palms up.

Steve finally moved to stand in front of Bucky, eyes searching his face before tugging Bucky to him and pressing their lips together.

“Well, then. I’ll just go over here,” Darcy said, blushing, the heat pooling in her limbs having nothing to do with the weather of the swamp.


	8. Prompt for August 7: Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” ― Voltaire
> 
> The US is either on fire or underwater. Please consider donating your time or blood to the [American Red Cross](https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation).

“I remember you. Not you? Someone who looks like you. Are you like… us?”

Darcy stared at Bucky from where he sat in the uncomfortable hotel chair, scrubbed clean and dressed in something other than his Winter Soldier suit. The boots though, they were still on, and Darcy was sure he had at least one concealed handgun and no less than ten knives. 

She didn’t blame him at all.

She had more practice separating out her memories and _not her_ memories, but he looked so similar to the man Riva had known during the war, and then after, when the Templars disguised as Hydra had him.

“My grandmother, Riva. We look a lot a like, or so I’ve been told. There aren’t a lot of pictures of her,” Darcy said after a few moments of thought. She hadn’t thought much farther than getting Bucky back, for Steve, for the part of her DNA that remembered him. 

“I’m not enhanced, I haven’t gotten some super serum. But you and I are _very_ alike. And nothing alike at the same time.”

She grinned as one of his dark eyebrows rose, his face obviously saying _cut the shit_.

“Yes, I do like sounding cryptic. It adds something to the mystery that are my beanies and glasses.” Sobering, Darcy moved farther into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and curling her feet under her thighs.

“HYDRA is an off shoot of the Templars, from what I’ve put together and from what - we, I guess - remember. The chair? It’s a crude method of _making_ you remember what your ancestors used to know. HYDRA then used those skills for their quest of suck.”

“Templars? Like, the guys who used to go on crusades? Friday the thirteenth and all of that?” Bucky’s voice was low, bare above a rasp, and he was still looking at Darcy like she was crazy.

“Yep.”

“I think I need a drink. And then you can start from the beginning.”

“And you can stop trying to hide behind the door, Steve,” they said at the same time.


	9. Prompt For August 8: Maybes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If quick, I survive.  
> If not quick, I am lost.  
> This is "death.”  
> ― Sun Tzu
> 
> [Mercy Ships](https://www.mercyships.org/ways-to-give/) uses hospital ships to transform individuals and serve nations, one at a time. They provide health care, especially for children with cleft palettes, club feet, while providing training and tools for the people in the nation to provide this care for their own people.

_France, 1390_

“I don’t care Étienne, that you’re going off on the crusade, trying to take bring the Holy Land back into Christian hands. You must do what your conscience demands. I’ve always taught you that, have I not?” his sister commented from her chair, serene and calm, even with him pacing back and forth, hands moving wildly as he tried to tell her to stay home. 

“But, Anna - “ he protested.

“I’m going to follow the pilgrim road, as is my right and want. Are you honestly going to try and deny me my own faith?” she asked, the smallest hint of frustration coloring her words. “Besides, isn’t that part of your duty as a Templar? Protecting pilgrims on the way?”

His wife put her mending down and stood, linen dress rustling softly as she moved across the room to place her hands on either side of her husband’s face. She had to reach up some ways, but matching blue eyes met hers, and she smoothed her thumb across lines of worry.

“You can’t possibly think that you want me home and safe anymore that I want you home and safe, Étienne. We can’t know what is to come. Maybe we make it home, maybe you die under the sword of a Saracen, or I from the sweating sickness. We cannot know, only He does.”

“I must join Sir Jacques at Compline.”  
“Go, go.,” she shooed him away with a kiss on his cheek. She hadn’t completely settled back into her chair when something moved in the shadow of the fireplace.

“I don’t understand how you can stomach that Templar touching you,” he spat at her, staying in the shadows, only the rustle of his clothing and the light catching on ice blue eyes giving him away.

“You and I both know this is the best way of following their path. I am the wife of a Templar Knight. No one will suspect me. Etienne least of all. He’s a good man, Guy, he knows not what he does,” Anna defended her husband. It was true, Etienne had no idea what the Templars were truly about. 

He also had no idea what she and the Assassins were about.

“Nothing is true.”

“Everything is permitted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small look into everyone's past/ancestors. Etienne is Steve, Guy is Bucky, and Anna is Darcy.


	10. Prompt for August 9: Dangerous Territory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's much easier to be brave when you don't believe that the monster under your bed is real.” ― Seanan McGuire, Half-Off Ragnarok
> 
> [War Child](http://www.warchild.org/) provides services to help children recover from their experiences and gives them the confidence and opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves, their families and their communities.

_Philadelphia, American Colonies, 1780_

“May I help you with that, Mistress Anna,” Grant asked as he caught up with her. His hat was askew, and he had a tear in the right arm of his coat. Anne grinned to herself at his disheveled look as she stopped and turned to face Grant. His sunny hair was caught back in a queue, and there was color high on his cheeks.

“And where is your partner in mischief, James? Surely the tear in your coat must be partially his doing?” She teased.

“I know not of what you speak,” James replied from her side, presenting a clutch of wildflowers as he bowed. 

Anne took the flowers from his hand, carefully palming the carefully folded piece of parchment from his sleeve cuff. She held them to her nose, smiling as she inhaled the sweet smell of violets.

“Thank you, Master James. I’ll see these set properly as soon as possible,” Anna said as she dropped a shallow curtsy. It wouldn’t do to tarry long, since the small paper had the information of the next troop movements in the Carolinas, and she had to get them to Continental Congress. It was easy enough to get in as a scullery maid. 

Even easier than luring one of those Lobsterback couriers, so young and swift, into her bed for the evening, and leaving them dead in the mountain gullies, throats slashed and horse commandeered for the Patriots.


	11. Prompt for August 10: Enthusiasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome back! Life got in the way of writing this - but I'm just about done and can't wait to share.
> 
> It's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the US, and I think his ideas of Resistance through Nonviolence are really needed.
> 
> You can find out more here: http://www.thekingcenter.org/donate-today-and-get-involved

_Concord, Massachusetts, November 1884_

She had thrown on her night dress and slippers, but her chestnut hair was still curling wildly about her shoulders. He could see the love bite low on her collar - he knew she’d fuss at him about having to wear a scarf to cover it. At least it wasn’t the high heat of summer.

He cringed when she looked of from her book, using the hastily scribbled note he’d left her as a bookmark. She was reading a romance, which was better than when she was reading the Old Testament.

His lover stood, dark eyes narrowing at him, and he felt his shoulders hunch towards his ears.

“A duel. A _duel_. You dragged your pale ass out of my bed to second that bone-headed brother of yours in _another_ duel of honor?” Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb, hoping to stave off the pressure from the headache she knew was forming.

James didn’t even try looking her in the eye, just tugged his sleeve cuffs down and hoped she wouldn’t notice the tears in the seams of his jackets, nor the grass on one thigh. He was thankful that she wouldn’t notice he was missing a sock, too.

“You’ve been gone for nearly a year, and home for less than two days, two _days_ James Barnes, your seed still running down my thighs and this is how you’ve chosen to spend your morning?”

His head snapped up at her words, ears turning red hot.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the mouth on you,” he said, voice low and reproachful. 

“You said the same thing last night, if you remember,” she retorted. “With some great enthusiasm.”

“I had to keep him from getting himself killed. Again. You know how Steven is, love.”

“Mhmmm. And when will he be limping along, expecting me to stitch him up and feed him his porridge?”

James waved his hand as he moved the rest of the way into the room, closing the door softly behind him. He slipped his shoes off, and walked softly the few feet across the room until he was standing in front of Darcy.

“I managed to talk both of the idiots down. Steve’s gone to see his Father,” he said, placing his hands gently on Darcy’s shoulders. She tipped her head up to him, and he placed a gentle kiss on her brow, pulling her warm body to him. 

“I’m still sore with you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Where in the world - how did you lose _one_ sock?”

“You’re too observant by far,” James said before slipping his arm under Darcy’s knees and carrying her to the bed. He grinned as she looked up at him, just a hint of smile playing on her lips. “I’ll have to do something to make you forget.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over on the [tumblr](http://octobergryphon.tumblr.com/).


End file.
